Avoiding any actual posting until I've gotten some homework accomplished. Though to be working on, say, my german or grammar or that damned history paper, I should really be off the computer and all...

T-minus one hour and counting until the fun and frolic that we call Portland is at my fingertips. I'm packed, I'm dramamined, I'm ready. Happy Long Weekend to all -- I hope to hear merry stories upon my return.

In the spirit of the upcoming holiday...YUCK.

In 25 hours, I will be en route to Portland to visit my folks' old roommate. She's the most awesome person over 40 I've ever met. Kyle and I will be spending a long weekend with her in the City of Roses, so posting may or may not occur. I can assure you that if there is any kind of posting, it will be brief. But I digress. I'm going to be cooking an untraditional Thanksgiving for three: roast chicken, garlic mashed potatoes with gravy (no way am I doing Turkey day with out 'em), some sort of salad item with Sister-in-law dressing (secret family recipe!) and some sort of desert item. I need a desert item recipe, come to think of it. Something eeeeeasy. So not only am I thrilled to be cooking again (it's been MONTHS!), but I'm thrilled to go to Portland, with all its coolness and Powells-ness and neo-hipsters and dim-sum restaurants and that Greek place my folks like. Very thrilled to get out of Eugene for a bit. Janelle is driving us up, and we're taking the train back. Too cool.

I think I'm beginning to tire of irony. Yeah, I know. It's groundbreaking news for Erica "sarcasm" Rothman, and I guess that's not what I mean. Verbal irony and literary irony and outright sarcasm aren't really my target in and of themselves. What bothers me is that our entire generation is de facto ironic. We take irony supplements, if you will, to our daily culture. Everyone has something snarky or smirky or IRONIC (and I mean it in the proper sense and its bastardized meaning) to say. There really isn't very much room for genuine emotion any more. I read this book, The Brothers K, a while ago. It's awesome because a) it just is and b) it's not overwhelmingly ironic. The Corrections, on the other hand (another great book that I really enjoyed), was TOO ironic. There were too many twists and double-meanings and such for some of the characters to appear genuine. And I'm worried that real people, people I see, are just layering themselves in irony because emotion is too difficult. Or too rare or unpopular or ugly or real. Don't be a construct would be my warning to this generation of college students. Makes me fucking sick.

EDIT: Added a link to my awesome pal Meg.

Note the new link. My cousin Aaron is awesome, and now I can prove it. Soon to come: link to the physics journal my grandpa edits (health permitting), and a link to the various other accomplishments of family and friends.

A spectacle that the harsh climes of Alaska do not permit: persimmon picking. According to local expert, Older Guy with Beard, there are three known persimmon trees in Eugene. He and his bevy of pickers (three is a bevy, right?) hit them all, and delicious cooking ensues. Kyle snagged a 'simmon and a short lecture. When I passed by, two kids picked up discarded fruit ('simmons that didn't get caught, fell to the ground and bruised) and presented it to their mother. She was unimpressed ("that's great, hon..."), but I found the whole thing extremely cute.

The blessed Orbis. Sophie, does Evergreen do Orbis? It's a bibliophile's wet dream. One can, with college affiliation (student ID#), access any book the collective libraries of the Pacific Northwest have to offer. I have Orange Laughter (I know the author!) and Fight Club are on order--and they ship in 2-3 business days. Lovely.

Still slogging away at crap of some order or another. Currently, I'm grinding a paper on the Japanese poet Basho into the ground. The topic we got is too simplistic (okay, that sounded arrogant, but I want to make it fun to write not just A proves B by way of C -- I want to think about this a little...gah, I still sound arrogant), so I'm tweaking it a little, pending prof permission.

Wrote a few letters this weekend. If I don't have your mailing address, email it to me.

EDIT: I can't believe I forgot to mention it, but...OPUS IS BACK!! The new comic "Opus" by awesome cartoonist Berkeley Breathed starts today and runs every friday, perhaps in a newspaper near you. Sadly, for us poor wretches who don't get papers delivered to us, it's only released on real, tree-pulpin' newsprint. Here's hoping the R-G carries it...

Thus far, the most exciting events of my day have been: a phone call from the wonderful Jesse, the purchase of a hat for the wonderful Kyle, and that biscuit I had at breakfast. I think I'm becoming boring.

One of those days. Meh. Go to the link Bailey left in comments. It's awful.

In other news, I've changed my start up, shut down and error sounds to various Strong Bad quotes. Hooray!

Why is it that everytime I look at the news, another bomb has gone off, or another impotent protest rages on? I don't mean to be bleak, but the bombing in Turkey has gotten me down. Compound that with the other bombing in Turkey, and the endless bombings in Iraq, Israel (and outlying areas that some call Israel and some don't), and on and on...it's like humanity is slowly chipping away at its own mortar. Homework: find something to unite the human race.

I notice NO ONE has responded to my "name your pirate ship" challenge. Slackers.

Is anyone else concerned about this? Bailey, I think you should be. It's in your neighborhood. Why didn't I hear about this?

UPDATE: It snowed for a good two hours today. Actually, considering that I came to Eugene hoping to avoid snow, "good" may not be the qualification I'm looking for. Picture pending.

It's raining. Someone ought to start a fund called the "Give Erica a dollar for everytime she says that it's raining so she can pay for her moist Oregon education fund". Any fund that helps me pay off these big monies is a good fund, really.

JUST SO YOU KNOW: T-minus 13 days until my birthday. The big 1-9. I'll be able to buy cigs in Alaska! Now if only I smoked...

There's a journalism/writing scholarship due in a bit. I want to enter, but I don't know what to write about. There is a cash prize and an opportunity to go to a writing conference AND meet with an editor from some publication or another. Dreams of getting lucky and bypassing college wafting...wafting...mmmm. Sadly, I have no ideas for a piece. If there's no piece, there's no entry. And if there's no entry, there's no chance, however minimal.

Yarrr and yo ho, me laddies and lassies. The feared Sophiebeard has named yours truly the dread pirate Rothman. Fitting, aye? To the two people that frequent this house of pillaging, plundering, rifling and looting: go show ol' Soph Silver some lovin'. Post explicit pictures of yourself. Write a long list of names you'd never give a schnauzer (including Schnauzie).

While we're on the subject: How the hell do you get winamp to not screw up with the streaming audio? Sophie, I went to the trouble of downloading it for you and your .ogg fest(s). But it's attempting to start a mutiny, which simply doesn't stand on my ship. I'm TRYING to LISTEN to some REM here! This displeases the Dread Pirate Rothman. DPR. DPyarrrrr.

Yes. Feeling silly. In that vein, go here. It's hilarious.

Finally, if you had a pirate ship, what would you name it? Be creative. La bella tortuga (reference to Treasure Island, of course), Pyrate's Pride, or Chicken of the Sea, mayhaps?

Why yes, I did enjoy my free meal.

It was grey and cloudy today--par for the course, I suppose. Eugene and winter seem to coincide with dreary, but I'm still having a good time weather-wise because there's no snow. The novelty of a snowless winter (hell, the novelty of a snowless November!) is enough to get me a-giggling.

Kyle and I were at a playground today. As she was swinging (swung?) I watched the clouds. When the clouds are grey, I could watch them endlessly. Or until my feet, nose and ears freeze. For a while, I stood facing the wind, watching a big, dark puff of potential rain slowly careen straight at me. My own personal Joe vs. the volcano. It was only sprinkling; I stared it down from its torrential downpour.
After my spectacular eye-to-eye with the Nimbus family bully, I saw that my feet had dug size 11 trenches in the wood chips I stood upon. Without thinking, I covered up the gaps, and, still without thinking, I stood on the same spot again. To me, it seemed terribly metaphorical. To stand and face the downpour, then erase all signs of the previous existence, only to stand there again. Reinvention of the something.

Added to the links. That will be an ongoing thing.

Not too much to say right now, although Kyle and I are getting a free meal out of her step-dad.

Some cat, who apparently has an ample supply of rhythm and soul, is playing jazz trombone in the courtyard outside my window. Ah, to be serenaded.

In Erica news, frustration mounts over course requirements. Journalism recs, art minor and honors college may not mesh. Oregon student communicates only in headlines, grunts. Muh.

These requirements are ridiculous. I want freedom, but I'm constricted by the fact that I simply can't do everything. It's going to be hard enough to balance J-school classes with the HC crap, but an art minor on top of it is beyond the pale. Something will have to go, especially if I want to study abroad. After a similar rigmarole in high school, I'm not going to repeat my mistakes. There will be no sacrifice of what I love to do for what I feel obligated to complete. Please feel free to throw this back in my face when I'm going on about how I can't leave the honors college because I'm a gigantic quitter, et cetera, ad nauseum.

Today's real feature, however, is my gush of the day. The topic? The New Zealand press.

I love the New Zealand press above the American, Canadian or British press for my international news source. The NZ Herald's coverage of Revenge of the Gulf War (to term it lovingly) is as objective as any. From reading this article, you wouldn't know that New Zealand has a defense staff of 61 stationed in Basra right now, where bombs are falling. They balance articles well; compare the above link to this one, and tell me that they're taking a stance on the war. I dare ya. We all know that the American press is totally spun--liberal and conservative alike. It's hard to find an American news source that subscribes to the Joe Friday Doctrine -- "just the facts." So US media is in a bipartisan pissing contest, while the Canadians just kind of give it a tsk and go back to their affairs. Canada is a friendly and caring country, truly the best kind of neighbor. Their press, inasmuch as I've observed, tends to have a strong focus on domestic affairs, which is great, if you're Canadian. The importance I place on international news and the global community isn't totally satisfied with Canadian foreign journalism. Then we have the Brits. Another fabulous country, one that I've had the pleasure of visiting. Sensationalism and yellow journalism is rampant, sadly. I'm not talking about the paparazzi (another rant entirely), but the British newspapers. Even the Guardian can ham it up. The thing about UK reporters and papers is this: either they're with Tony Blair and Bush (a dying breed), or they're barely or poorly concealing their ire at the White House. Yes, yes, Bush is a moron and the whole administration reeks of unprecedented corruption -- I agree with all of that passionately -- but that should not show in an objective piece of copy. Period. To briefly touch on the Aussies, they have firmer ties with the US than New Zealand, being a larger country and all. They're good, but not as good as my beloved Kiwis.

As for a less America-centric view, INTERnational news. It's actually from many nations. Not just the USA, not just Oceania, not just Europe. Admittedly, no one but African papers carry as much African news as I'd like (unless, of course, they're asking the United States for aid...) but you can't have everything. My biggest gripe about the international news sections -- limiting my argument to rags in English -- is the emphasis on Europe and the US (and Australia, if you're in that neighborhood). At any rate, the New Zealand press has a hold on me because of their beautiful, beautiful world news sections.

Thanks for reading, Bai. I now know someone is out there...

No, I will not endorse any single Democratic candidate (said with a wry grin, as if anyone truly cares). However, I will give a hearty "you go, girl" to Carol Moseley Braun. It's highly doubtful that she'll get the nomination (but hey, you never know), but I like her politics and I think it's gutsy for her, a black woman, to do. Meanwhile, the Dean/Clark battle rages on, with Kerry trying his damnedest. Personally, I think it's time for Kuninich, Sharpton, and the rest of the not-so-hopeful hopefuls to start bowing out gracefully. The last thing the Democratic party needs is a war of the demagogues.

Read this and return. Back yet? Okay: HOLY SHIT. This is science in the coolest, weirdest, most ethically challenging extreme. Personally, I don't know how much I'd like a dead person's face, but then again, I'm not suffering from extreme burns. I suppose that would be one way to go, as opposed to grafts--which I understand are painful and sometimes unsightly. Frankly, I'm just amazed that a face transplant could even be possible. The ethical issues it raises are fascinating. Is it wrong to wear someone else's face? Is it wrong to forsake your own? Conside my mind blown.

Ahh, free pizza. Love of any college student's life.

Odds and ends today.

I don't know about anyone else (I mean anyone else EVER, not just anyone who cruises by this place on a whim), but I really miss Nickelodeon's cartoon "Rocko's Modern Life." That show was as fucked up as possible under the PG (perhaps PG-13) restrictions. I watched it religiously, passionately after school in my elementary/junior high days. Any cartoon about a feckless wallaby, an overweight heifer, and a miopic turtle with some form of anxiety disorder gets two thumbs up in my book. I would be happy forever if a DVD collection of Rocko's Modern Life existed somewhere.

The U of O campus is totally overrun with squirrels. I guess "overrun" is a poor choice of words for its negative, infestation sort of connotations. Point being, squirrels are EVERYWHERE. And seeing as I'm in a sort of fuzzy creature deficiency right now (I still miss my cats), I fight the urge to scamper after these little dudes and try to catch them. The practical "you'd never get one anyhow" approach has been working so far.

My typing skills are not up to snuff today. It's taken me a shamefully long time to type this much. I think this is the end for now.

Ted Rall makes me laugh and cry.

I love the New Zealand Herald. They've reported on the abortion bill in a way the American media has only feinted at. Read it.

I can't help but feel like there's no point to this blog exercise anymore. I'm just getting my thoughts out and sending them in a million possible directions, but nothing happens. I don't feel happier or cleansed or wiser or anything. Color me impatient, but I'm getting annoyed. Nonetheless, I'm trudging on with it. I thought it was a good idea at one point, so until I have proven myself totally right or totally wrong, I'm not stopping. Granted there was a brief cessation in there while I ACED a literature paper. That's right, A- baby. That class is my bitch.

In other news, there's not a lot of other news, except that the honors college requirements and journalism school requirements combine in such a way that restricts me from taking any class that DOESN'T fulfill some kind of requirement. It's like my damn yoga class is my guilty little pass/no pass pleasure--and I'm not even enjoying it! My instructor seems to make up science to lecture us with as we contort ourselves. I don't especially feel like I'm getting a workout, either. I think next term is going to be something active, like racquetball, where the instructor won't spout crackpot theories and broken Hindu mysticism to keep us going.

My history prof, the tough one, made us cookies yesterday. I don't understand why I have such a hard time rallying my thoughts in his class. In discussions, I'm active and thoughtful, but outside of a conversation, I can't make a point. It's troubling, and it makes me feel stupid which I do not like at all.

Dear god! The sky is blue! I haven't seen THAT in a while. Someone once told me it rains a lot in Oregon. Who'd have thought? Oh well. Green grass all year is worth it.

Life is very, very good.

Palahniuk was awesome, even though he had mono -- acquired from Quentin Tarantino on Conan the night before. "If Quentin Tarantino tells you not to drink out of his cup," he told us, "don't drink out of the fuckin' cup." Packed into a space that reminded me of Anchorage's Fairview rec center with around 250 other people (by my estimation), I remembered that this venue -- WOW hall -- was the venue from which two identified cases of meningitis were traced. But it was worth it. Palahniuk read from an unpublished work, a collection of short stories. Their theme is "what would Edgar Allen Poe write if he were writing now?" The point is to probe the unspeakable, and the story he read, "Guts," was very nearly so. I...it...wow. Kyle and I were both on the verge of losing conciousness or lunch. He's such an awesome writer. During the Q and A, he gave preference to those with dogs, tossing plastic-foam human limbs for fetching. As prizes. As I said: awesome.

In other news, I kicked some midterm ass in literature. An A. A solid 99%, actually. Boo-yah is really all I have to say.

Naturally, after slogging through massive revisions on this paper I'm writing, I wrote a tender, juicy post--promptly deleted by an internet hiccup. That was last night, and I was not interested in re-writing much of anything (dashing off this paper has been a damned saga...perhaps even an epic). I'm not going to try to recreate any of it, but I assure you that the paper is in a better way than it was. As is my mental state. My history prof is really tough, so I tend to freak myself out when composing papers for him. To the point where I can't write a decent sentence without agonizing over it, editing it, deleting it and starting all over again. I have a somewhat close to finalized draft that my live-in editor is working on right now. She's so wonderful.

Eugene is not quite home yet. I don't know my way around the city, nor do I have a comfy little circle of friends. This is not an Anchorage-like situation, but I have to come to terms with the fact that it will not become anything like Anchorage. It's not Anchorage. I was trying out the words " throw this out� I really want a talking teddy bear phone like the one that Graham Uses to call people. I just think that it's the coolest thing. :-)85 I really want a talking teddy bear phone like the one that Graham Uses to call people. I just think that it's the coolest thing. :-)

EDIT: What the hell happened? My post had NOTHING to do with Graham or his talking bear phone. The words I tried out were "I live in Eugene, Oregon" -- it came up in German class. Ich wohne in Eugene. Ich komme aus Anchorage. Toby, I wish you could give me some of your fluency by osmosis.

This was also missing from the post, ostensibly replaced by Graham's phone. Kyle and I are going to see...wait for it...Chuck Palahniuk! He's giving a reading in Eugene tonight and I'm SO EXCITED! All we need is directions to this place...

I’ve been working on this paper for a while now, and I think I’ve made good progress. It’s a comparison between ancient Hebrew and ancient Mesopotamian societies, based on their respective codes of law. Unfortunately, I’ve come to the point where I can’t focus enough to be productive, but I’m in a scholarly sort of mode so I can’t go screw around. Not that I really have the time to go screw around anyway. This paper is due Wednesday, and I’d like to have a rough draft done today. That’s pretty idealistic, I know, but I’m outlining pretty thoroughly and…damn. Now I’m making myself feel guilty for writing this.

I got a card from Bailey yesterday. It made my day. I need to write her back, but she’s a lot more forgiving that my history professor. She will probably have to wait. Which reminds me, in a gigantic mind-jump sort of way, that I need to call my folks. And my grandma, whose birthday is tomorrow.

The course catalog for UO’s winter term classes came out online the other day. I’m excited. It’s fun to just browse around, even if I’m hopelessly restricted by three yearlong classes. I’ll be glad when I’m done with massive pre-recs, although I won’t be glad when I realize these classes forced me to put off the dreaded (but required) math class until another year. I’ll be even rustier on my sines and cosines.

Is this blog project working yet?

Hope Halloween was good for all. I had more of a Hallowhatever because of illness. More when I'm procrastinating homework tomorrow.